


Spill the beans

by middlemarch



Category: Frozen (Disney Movies), Frozen 2 - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bakery and Coffee Shop, Baristas, Chefs, Conversations, F/M, Family, Nicknames, Pets, Romantic Friendship, Slow Romance, Spice Girls References, Star Trek References, delivery man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-18 13:01:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21711172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: Anna and Elsa had been running their coffee-shop with varying degrees of success for the past four years. Maybe that counted as a good run.
Relationships: Anna & Elsa (Disney), Anna/Kristoff (Disney), Kristoff & Sven (Disney: Frozen)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 63





	Spill the beans

The bell at the coffee shop’s front door jingled brightly, but Anna didn’t look up from her laptop screen. There was a chance, if she just stared hard enough and didn’t let anything interrupt her concentration, she could make the numbers work out.

“We’re closed, sorry!” she called, squinting as she moved the cursor, deleting the advertising budget by a zero. Maybe Mattias would let her barter for the half, no quarter-page ad she’d need to keep traffic up. Or she could name a new coffee-drink after him, butter him up with the prospect of a hot buttered rum flavored latte?

“Yeah, I know. The “Sorry, we’re closed sign” in the window was a dead giveaway,” Kristoff said. He must have parked his delivery truck in the back, because Anna couldn't see it on the street unless his roommate Sven really had invented an invisibility cloak for it. Sven was a certifiable genius who’d picked up Finnish in a few days, even though it was supposed to be the hardest language to master, and he had a real penchant for Star Trek, so the Romulan invisibility cloak on Kristoff’s delivery truck wasn’t completely impossible, just mostly. Kristoff was still wearing his uniform though, so the truck was probably idling out back.

“You never come in through the front door,” Anna said. “And we’re not due for a delivery, which is good, because I’m not sure how I’m paying for the next one.”

“The back door was locked and it’s late enough, I figured no one would hear me banging on it,” Kristoff said, taking off his navy blue knit cap and sitting down across from her. He was over six feet tall, head to toe in heavy duty denim, and his dark blond hair was burnished by the pricked tin lanterns hanging from the ceiling. “If you don’t want people coming in, you should probably lock the front door and turn off more of the lights.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” she muttered.

“You have chocolate all over your apron. It looks like you murdered a Hershey bar,” Kristoff said dryly. He’d do that, take her at her word as literally as he could, because she always gave him the same snarky little smirk back.

“Valrhona only at Iduna’s! Though, I don’t know, we’re going to have to make cut-backs, so maybe I should just suck it up and buy the Hershey’s.”

“Cut-backs, huh? What’s going on? The place is always packed and you had that great write-up in the _Arendelle Gazette_ last month, and I quote, ‘their lingonberry baked Alaskas are to die for and their Palace lattes make life worth living,’” Kristoff said. A small voice in the corner of Anna’s mind, a higgledy-piggedly place to be sure, piped up to point out Kristoff had read the review **and** remembered it well enough to quote it to her.

“Restaurants, which is what the coffee-shop counts as, economically speaking, always have a really slim profit margin and we’re no different. Things were already tight for us and then Olaf got sick and his vet bills were huge, even though they’re letting us pay them off on an installment plan,” Anna explained. Kristoff nodded and she appreciated that he hadn’t questioned the cost of taking care of her fluffy, white, goofball of a sheepdog Olaf, who spent his days trotting around the front of the shop, equally entertaining crying babies and curmudgeonly old men. She wouldn’t relive the week they thought he couldn’t make it for anything.

“I got it,” Kristoff said.

“But that’s not the worst of it. And I shouldn’t even say, ‘the worst of it,’ because it’s basically good news, great news really, I should be shouting it from the roof-tops and I feel terrible because I’m not, I’m just sitting here trying to make 2+2 equal 5 on the profit side, hiding if you want the truth,” Anna said in a rush.

“Why don’t you just tell me what it is? I promise I won’t judge,” he said. His brown eyes were calm and steady, warm in a way that she usually pretended not to see because what if she was wrong and said something and made it all completely awkward?

“It’s Elsa. After that review, I guess we did get a lot more business and people, important restaurant people, starting talking about her, and well, she just got a job offer to be the head pastry chef at Ahtolhallan, so, of course she’s taking it, she has to—it’s Ahto-fudging-hallan, pardon my French,” Anna said.

“Wow,” Kristoff said. And then, “You don’t say pardon my French when you don’t actually curse. You would have had to say Ahto-fucking-hallan.”

“Oh my God, Kristoff! I’ve never heard you curse before!” Anna exclaimed.

“I try to be professional when I’m on the clock. I’m not a saint, you know,” he said. That little voice commented _that’s a fucking relief_ , as Anna looked at Kristoff’s broad shoulders, his beautifully made hands. “She’s definitely going, then?”

“She has to. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime. They have two Michelin stars. I have a cappuccino maker that’s on the fritz and trivia night,” Anna said. “I can’t expect her to stay, I don’t want her to stay—she’s made for bigger and better things that Iduna’s and I want her to get them. She’s my sister and I love her and I’m so proud of her, her talent and her grit and her all-around-amazing-ness. But I’ll be down a pastry chef and I can’t break even on just the drinks and where are you going, Kristoff?” she said. He’d gotten up as she kept talking, walking behind the counter as if he owned the place, talking milk out of the fridge, slinging a clean dishtowel over his shoulder.

“You need a pick-me-up, Ginger Spice—and you need someone to make it for you, for a change,” he said. He moved around so easily, graceful in a way she might not have expected of such a large man. He’d tossed off the nickname but there was no mistaking the affection in his tone, the utter lack of any real sarcasm.

“I can’t drink coffee this late at night, I’ll never get to sleep,” she said. “And the cappuccino maker is very temperamental.”

“I know,” he said, finishing off the mug with a luxurious quiff of whipped cream. He walked over and set it down in front of her without any particular flourish, as if he’d done it a million times before. He glanced at her to check first, then closed her laptop and nudged it to the side. “I made you cocoa. With cinnamon and extra whipped cream.”

“That’s my favorite,” she said. She took a sip—it was perfect, the rich chocolate balanced with the subtle heat of the cinnamon, the sweetness of the cream, the temperature ideal for sipping without scalding the roof of her mouth, a rookie mistake she’d made for weeks when she first started the shop. She got some of the whipped cream on her upper lip and licked it off before he could say anything about a mustache, though looking at him, how still he became, she thought maybe that couldn’t have been the direction he’d go.

“Yeah, it is,” he said. “I’ve noticed. We can take a look at your spreadsheet after you’re done, if you want. I got that associate’s in business at night school, might as well put it to good use.”

“You don’t have to do that, Kristoff,” she said.

“What are friends for?” he asked, tilting his head to the side, too handsome to be adorable but somehow managing it. “We are friends, right?” he added, a little uncertainly.

“Abso-fudging-lutely,” she answered.

**Author's Note:**

> So, what's a fandom without a coffee-shop AU? I don't think any of the transposition requires much explanation. I haven't planned to write another installment but I might be persuaded...
> 
> The T is mostly for the cursing as there's no friskiness (yet!)


End file.
